Marketing, inventory ads and lead handling built for car dealerships.
A dealership sells what is on the lot this week, so its marketing has to move with the inventory feed, not a campaign calendar.
We run vehicle listing ads and search campaigns built from your live inventory, route every internet lead to your BDC with the vehicle, source and trade details attached, and measure the showroom appointment and the sold unit instead of form fills. The service drive gets its own program, because retention and fixed operations carry the store when new-car margins tighten. Finance and lease ads are written so triggering terms carry the disclosures Regulations Z and M require, and co-op claims are built to your OEM rules from the start.
Questions this page answers
- Car dealership marketing agency
- Auto dealer marketing that tracks sold units
- Dealership digital marketing for used inventory
- How do dealerships get more service appointments
- Who should run marketing for my car dealership
- How to run vehicle listing ads for a dealership
Step 1 of 2
How can we help you get found?
Next: name, email and budget. That’s it.
Where growth is won or lost in dealership.
A car buyer does most of the shopping before anyone at the store knows they exist. They compare vehicles on marketplaces and your site, check payments, value their trade, and read reviews of your sales and service departments. When they finally raise a hand, it might be a form, a chat, a call or a marketplace lead, and the BDC has minutes to turn it into an appointment. The appointment that shows, and the car that gets delivered, are the only conversions that matter.
Dealership marketing sits inside layers. The manufacturer runs tier 1 brand advertising, the regional dealer association runs tier 2, and your store runs tier 3, often with co-op money that pays only if the ad meets OEM rules. Meanwhile the service drive, not the new-car lot, often produces the steadiest profit, yet its marketing is left to OEM defaults. Prior agencies reported impressions and leads, never connected the DMS, and let marketplaces become the default answer to every slow month.
Theory Road starts with data plumbing: an inventory feed that drives the ads, every lead source normalized into your CRM with vehicle and source intact, calls tracked by department, and DMS deals matched back to campaigns. Then we run vehicle listing ads, model search, Meta inventory ads and local search for sales and service, built on co-op compliant templates with Regulation Z and M disclosures. Reporting shows units sold, gross and service appointments by source every week.
The problems we fix in car dealerships.
Ads that ignore the lot
Campaigns keep spending on models that sold two weeks ago while aged units sit past sixty days with no push, because nobody connected the inventory feed to the ad account or the budget.
Internet leads that die in the CRM
Leads from the website, third-party marketplaces and chat land in the CRM without source or vehicle detail, the BDC calls some of them hours later, and nobody can say which channel sold cars.
Marketplace dependence
Cars.com, CarGurus and Autotrader bills climb every year, their leads are shared with the store down the road, and your own website traffic never grows enough to replace them.
Service drive left to the OEM program
Fixed operations carries the store, yet service marketing is whatever the manufacturer program sends. Declined repairs, lapsed customers and conquest service buyers get no dedicated follow-up at all.
Web, marketing, creative and systems for car dealerships.
Built on your accounts, wired into the tools your team already runs, and measured to booked work.
- New and used inventory search
- Vehicle detail pages
- Specials and offers
- Value your trade
- Finance and credit application
- Service scheduling and specials
- Model research pages
- About, staff and reviews
Each page answers one intent, carries one call to action, and lands the lead in your CRM with the page attached.
Websites and digital product.
Vehicle detail pages with real photos, walkaround video, transparent pricing, payment estimates with required disclosures, trade value tools and a test drive scheduler that books an actual appointment time.
- Model and research pagesPages for the models you sell most, comparisons against rivals, and trim guides that rank for research searches and answer the questions AI assistants get asked.
- Service and parts sectionOnline service scheduling, specials that follow your pricing rules, a declined-work return path and pages for the maintenance searches your service drive wants to win.
- Finance and trade pagesCredit application, trade-in appraisal and lease explainer pages that capture serious buyers and pass structured data straight to your desk and BDC.
- Google Vehicle Listing AdsAlways on, feed updated daily
- Google SearchAlways on
- Third-party marketplacesReviewed every month
- Meta inventory adsAlways on
- Google Business ProfileAlways on
- Service retention email and textAfter every repair order
Demand, search and reputation.
Vehicle listing ads and Performance Max fed from your live inventory, search campaigns by model and condition, with budget weighted toward aged units and high-gross vehicles.
- Local SEO for sales and serviceGoogle Business Profile for sales, service and parts departments, review requests after delivery and repair orders, and location pages that win dealer near me searches.
- Meta and video audiencesAutomotive inventory ads on Meta and YouTube placements that retarget shoppers who viewed specific vehicles and reach in-market buyers across your primary market area.
- Service retention campaignsDeclined repair follow-up, lapsed customer win-back, recall outreach and equity mining that brings owners back to the service drive and into the sales lane.
- Inventory photo and video standardsA shot list and backdrop standard for every unit, walkaround video templates and consistent overlays, so listings look the same on your site and every marketplace.
- Co-op compliant ad templatesAd templates built to your OEM brand guidelines and co-op rules, with disclosure blocks sized correctly, so claims get paid instead of rejected.
- Salesperson and service advisor contentShort videos of your staff answering real buyer questions, delivery moments and service explainers that give your store a face marketplaces cannot copy.
Brand, photography and collateral.
A shot list and backdrop standard for every unit, walkaround video templates and consistent overlays, so listings look the same on your site and every marketplace.
- Co-op compliant ad templatesAd templates built to your OEM brand guidelines and co-op rules, with disclosure blocks sized correctly, so claims get paid instead of rejected.
- Salesperson and service advisor contentShort videos of your staff answering real buyer questions, delivery moments and service explainers that give your store a face marketplaces cannot copy.
Comes in from
- Website forms
- Tracked calls
- Ads and LSA
- Google Business Profile
Lands in
- CDK Global
- Reynolds and Reynolds
- VinSolutions
Comes back as
- Per-source attribution
- Automated follow-up
- One weekly scoreboard
Built to your system of record, not around it. Nothing is re-keyed by hand.
Integration, automation and data.
Every lead from website, chat, marketplaces and ads normalized into your CRM in ADF format with vehicle, trade, source and timestamp, then routed to the right BDC agent instantly.
- Sold-unit attributionDeals from your DMS matched back to leads and campaigns, so reporting shows vehicles sold and front and back gross by source, not just form fills.
- Call tracking and scoringTracking numbers by channel and department, calls scored for appointment set, and missed sales calls surfaced to managers the same day.
- Offline conversions to ad platformsAppointments shown and units sold sent back to Google and Meta as offline conversions, so bidding learns which shoppers actually buy.
What a great dealership website contains.
The pages that do the selling for this kind of company, and what each one has to do to turn a visit into a call.
New and used inventory search
Fast filters by make, model, price and payment, with real photos and clear pricing that keep shoppers on your site instead of marketplaces.
Vehicle detail pages
Walkaround video, features, payment estimate with required disclosures, trade value tool and a test drive scheduler that books a real appointment slot.
Specials and offers
Current finance, lease and cash offers with complete disclosures and expiration dates, built to OEM co-op rules so claims get reimbursed.
Value your trade
A trade-in appraisal flow that captures vehicle, condition and payoff, then passes the lead to your used car manager and BDC instantly.
Finance and credit application
A secure credit application and plain explanations of financing and leasing that hand structured data to your finance office.
Service scheduling and specials
Online booking, maintenance specials, recall lookup and declined-work return offers that keep the service drive full through the week.
Model research pages
Guides and comparisons for your top models that rank for research searches and give AI assistants clear, citable answers about your store.
About, staff and reviews
Your team, your history in the community and verified reviews for sales and service, because buyers choose the store before the car.
Where the demand comes from, and when.
The tools car dealerships already run on.
We build to your system of record rather than around it. Leads, calls, jobs and revenue land where your team already works, with the attribution attached.
CDK Global
Deal and repair order data matched to leads for sold-unit and service attribution.
Reynolds and Reynolds
DMS sales and service records exported to reporting so campaigns tie to gross.
VinSolutions
Leads delivered in ADF with source and vehicle, appointments and sold status read back.
DealerSocket
CRM lead intake and status sync so each campaign reports shown and sold outcomes.
Elead
Internet leads routed to BDC queues with source, vehicle and trade details intact.
Dealer Inspire
Website inventory pages, forms and chat tagged so every lead carries its source.
Google Vehicle Listing Ads
Inventory feed built, disapprovals fixed and listings optimized by condition, model and age.
What we run the account by
Appointments shown.
Sales appointments where the customer actually arrived at the store, counted by lead source and channel each week.
Cost per vehicle sold.
Total marketing and marketplace spend divided by units delivered from those sources, using DMS deal data.
Lead response time.
Minutes from lead arrival to first real contact by the BDC, measured during and after business hours.
Gross per marketing source.
Front and back gross from DMS deals attributed to each channel, so spend follows profit and not volume.
Service appointments from marketing.
Repair orders opened from retention campaigns, service search and online scheduling, tracked against the service marketing budget.
Rules we respect
Regulations Z and M.
Triggering terms in finance ads, such as a payment amount or down payment, require disclosures including APR. Lease ads carry similar required disclosures under Regulation M.
Advertised price rules.
FTC guidance and many state laws require advertised prices to include all charges a buyer must pay except government fees like taxes and registration. Rules vary by state.
OEM co-op requirements.
Manufacturer brand guidelines, approved imagery and disclosure rules must be met or co-op reimbursement is denied, so templates are built to each OEM's standard.
TCPA for sales and service.
Marketing texts and calls go only to customers with documented consent, with opt-outs honored across both sales and service systems.
The dealership playbook.
Audit the feed, the CRM and the phones.
We review inventory feed quality, lead source mapping in your CRM, BDC response times, call handling and co-op spend, then show where sold units are being lost before spending more.
Rebuild lead flow and attribution.
Every lead source gets normalized into the CRM, calls get tracked by channel, and DMS deals match back to leads so we can report shown appointments and sold units by source.
Launch inventory-driven media.
Vehicle listing ads, model search campaigns and Meta inventory ads go live on your feed, with budget rules that push aged units and pull spend from sold ones.
Add the service engine and tune weekly.
Service retention campaigns go live, then we review cost per sold unit, marketplace return and service appointments weekly with your managers and shift budget accordingly.
- Strategy and brandwe lead it or back your team
- Paid mediamanaged day to day
- Search and AI visibilityrun and reported monthly
- Websites and hostingbuilt, hosted and cared for
- CRM and lead systemsrun for you or with you
- Creative and contentproduced in-house
Fully managed, alongside your team, or built and handed off. Month to month after the initial term.
Why car dealerships choose us.
Every report ties back to your DMS: appointments shown, units delivered and gross by source. That makes marketplace renewals, co-op decisions and agency spend easy to judge on real numbers.
- Systems work is in-houseWe build the lead routing, ADF delivery, call tracking and offline conversion feeds ourselves, so your CRM and DMS finally talk to the ad platforms without another vendor in between.
- Compliance built into creativeFinance and lease disclosures, advertised price rules and OEM co-op requirements are written into templates from day one, so ads run cleanly and co-op claims get reimbursed.
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Hiring an agency for a dealership business.
- Who should run marketing for my car dealership?
- A partner who can work from your inventory feed, understands BDC lead handling, and measures sold units from your DMS. That usually means inventory-driven paid media, local search for sales and service, lead routing into your CRM, and ads that meet Regulation Z, Regulation M and OEM co-op rules. We handle all of it for franchise and independent stores.
- Do we still need Cars.com, CarGurus and Autotrader?
- Usually some of them, for now. Marketplaces reach shoppers your site cannot yet reach. The goal is to measure each one by sold units and gross from your DMS, cut the ones that do not pay back, and grow your own site traffic and vehicle listing ads so you depend on rented leads less each year.
- How do dealerships get more service appointments?
- By treating service as its own marketing program. We follow up declined repairs, win back lapsed owners, run recall outreach, rank service pages for maintenance searches, and make online scheduling easy. Service specials and reminders go only to customers with the right consent for texts and calls.
- What are triggering terms in dealership finance ads?
- Under Regulation Z, stating a down payment, a monthly payment, the number of payments or the finance charge in a credit ad triggers required disclosures, including the APR. Regulation M sets similar rules for lease ads. We write templates so every triggering term carries its disclosures, and your compliance team or counsel has final approval.
- Can you work with our OEM tier 1 and tier 2 programs?
- Yes. Manufacturer tier 1 brand advertising and regional tier 2 association programs run above your store. We run tier 3 dealer-level marketing, follow the OEM brand guidelines and co-op rules, keep the documentation claims require, and avoid bidding against your own association campaigns where that wastes money.
Let’s grow your dealership business.
A short note on where the business is and where it needs to go. A senior partner replies within one business day.